Despite Criticism, Google Won’t Separate Buzz From Gmail

In its four days of existence, Google’s Buzz has come under attack for exposing information about user’s Gmail contacts on the web. But while the company is taking steps to fix privacy loopholes, it is not going to separate Gmail from Buzz, contrary to an earlier report on Search Engine Land, which has since been taken down. A Google (NSDQ: GOOG) spokeswoman tells us however that the company may offer a standalone version of Buzz, in addition to the one built into Gmail.

Alley Insiderfirst reported earlier this week “a huge privacy flaw” which meant that by using Buzz, users often had a list of the people they e-mailed the most often on Gmail show up online; TechCrunchhas also reported that private e-mail addresses can also exposed via the service. In response, Google has made some changes, including making an existing option not to have the list of frequent e-mail contacts made public.

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Despite the controversy, Google has said that more than nine million posts were made on the service during its first two days. That’s in large part because it’s so tightly linked to Gmail, which claims more than 100 million unique users — once again reinforcing why Google wouldn’t want to separate the two.